Man and Church
From Metropolitan to Hermit: St. Hilarion’s Life of Prayer
The remarkable life of Venerable Hilarion of the Caves is an enduring call to humility and holiness.
If you open the Church calendar to November 3 (old style), you will see something interesting. It is one of those days on the calendar that is full of saints sharing a name. In this case, there are four of them, all sharing the name Hilarion: Venerable Hilarion the Great of Gaza, the Holy Hierarch Hilarion of Moglena, Venerable Hilarion of Gdov, and Venerable Hilarion of the Kiev Caves.
It is the last of these wonderful saints, St. Hilarion of the Caves, that holds something of a mystery. The mystery involves the absence from many liturgical calendars of one more saint of the same name: the Holy Hierarch Hilarion, Metropolitan of Kiev. Who are these two saints – and are they in fact the same person?
